Procedure Today Hopefully

[DancingEyes63]

Good morning. I'm sitting in outpatient surgery waiting room. Jimmy's supposed to have colonoscopy and endoscopy this morning. He didn't do well with prep and not having his nausea and pain meds this morning so I'm hoping they are able to do it. He's been having some pain in his esophagus area so I worry about those varicies and want to make sure the bands are good. Also last colonoscopy they weren't able to get all polyps and I'm sure having those out will help with some of his pain. I know he felt better last time after they took the 20 or so polyps out.

Anyway please keep us in your prayers that everything goes well. He's not feeling good this week. Oncologist has started him on steroids last week. First couple days seemed good but then he started having side effects so had to stop them. It's taken several days to get it out of his system.

Wendy if you read this, do you remember what steroid Dave was on? Excited because I signed up for another one of the opportunities and things are beginning with it. ❤ Being able to possibly help someone's journey or make positive changes in the way HCC is treated means a lot to me. ❤❤❤

Love y'all and talk to y'all soon.

Sharon

[Curly_Girl Caregiver]

Oh Sharon, being in the waiting room is rough, I know. Sending you hugs! And lots of good thoughts to Jimmy so they can complete his procedures and hopefully give him some relief. I'm so glad Jimmy's varices are the type that can be banded; Dave had them at the end but they were oozing and the doctor said those were really hard to band. I sure hope you don't have to wait too long to find out how everything went.

Dave was on methylpredisolone (he always just called it Medrol). They never put him on a very high dose for the radiation-induced hepatitis, but back in the 90s when he had leukemia and was going through chemo for that, he was on super high doses of it. Anyway, he didn't have any side effects this time around, probably because the dose was so low (8 mg then dropped to 4 mg).

We did a number of those studies and always enjoyed them! Some of them were really interesting and we got to be creative with journals, etc. It's so nice that you are able to do that and help others as well -- so important to give back however we can!

Prayers going up for you both, my friend!

❤️

[DancingEyes63 Moderator Caregiver in reply to Curly_Girl]

Hi Wendy. Well they haven't brought him back out yet and said not doing it so hopefully that's a good sign. We're at our little local hospital and there's no room so have to wait in waiting room. Before they remodeled to add additional beds, they were set up like cubicles so one person could go back while prepping patient and actually just wait there during procedure. The larger hospital in Tyler is still like that. I hate being stuck out here not knowing what's going on. Especially since sometimes Jimmy doesn't understand what they're asking him or gets confused answering their questions. He doesn't have a clue what he takes or doesn't take. LOL 😁.

The steroid they had him on was dexamethasone. It was just 4 mg. He did fine for a day off two then started being dizzy, sick to stomach, irritable, mood swings, crying. Think he had every bad side effect you could get. Poor thing. I'll ask the Dr if there's a different one maybe.

Yes I did an interview for Forefront. Really enjoyed it. They're supposed to send me a link so I can see the finished product.

Now I'm starting a couple projects with Humanize Health. I agree, anything that I can do to help, educate, etc., I want to be involved with. My small way to help in the fight against HCC. ❤ Jimmy's not interested or comfortable participating besides giving me answers and allowing his picture to be used so he says I can be his voice.

We used the payment for project to help buy underpinning for the RV so that was a Blessing also.

Hope you're having a good week. Is it still cold there? Been warmer here but supposed to get storms tonight. I did a little canning yesterday. Don't have much freezer space so I pulled out some meat and canned it. Jimmy's fixed me up an area under the trailer to use like a root cellar.

Take care and I'll talk to you soon.

❤❤❤Sharon